QUALITATIVE RESEARCH QUESTION

1. Week
May 28, 2021
Framing
Qualitative RQs:
Masters Thesis
Perspectives
Ali G. Anudin, Ph.D.
Faculty of Arts and
Languages

2. REVIEW on Quantitative RQs
Descriptive Questions:
1. How do the students rate on critical
thinking skills? (A descriptive question
focused on the independent variable)
2. What are the student’s achievement
levels (or grades) in science classes?
(A descriptive question focused on the
dependent variable)
Creswell. J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

3. REVIEW on Quantitative RQs
Inferential Questions:
1. Does critical thinking ability relate to student
achievement? (An inferential question relating the
independent and the dependent variables)
2. Does critical thinking ability relate to student
achievement, controlling for the effects of prior
grades in science and the educational attainment
of the eighth-graders’ parents? (An inferential
question relating the independent and the dependent
variables, controlling for the effects of the two
controlled variables)
Creswell. J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

4. Qualitative RQs
Qualitative research questions may concern broad areas
of research or more specific areas of study. Similar to
quantitative research questions, qualitative research
questions are linked to research design.
Unlike their quantitative counterparts, qualitative RQs
are usually adaptable, non-directional, and more flexible
(Creswell, 2013).
As a result, studies using these questions generally aim
to “discover,” “explain,” or “explore.”
Bui, Y. (2019). How to write a Master’s Thesis (3rd ed.). Sage.

5. Qualitative RQs
Qualitative research is more concerned with
understanding an event or phenomenon, thus, its open-
ended RQs focus more on a group’s experience than on
statistics or numbers.
Qualitative research is primarily used in social sciences
and includes surveys, case studies, focus groups, and
ethnography studies. Here are the three types of
qualitative questions for both research topics and survey
questions.
Bui, Y. (2019). How to write a Master’s Thesis (3rd ed.). Sage.

6. Characteristics of Qualitative RQs
Creswell (2009) identified some characteristics of qualitative
research:
1. Natural Setting . Researchers collect data in the field.
In gathering data, they have to communicate with the
subject directly, face-to-face, and not sending out
instrument like questionnaire. They observe how
people behave or act, and note the realities or facts as
they are, not artificial or manipulated.
2. Researchers key role. To collect data through
examining documents, observing behavior, action,
phenomena, or interviewing informants.

7. Characteristics of Qualitative RQs
3. Multiple sources of data. Multiple forms of data are
gathered, particularly from observations, interviews
and documents. This is done to complete the data, to
cross check, or to avoid biases. Then, they review and
organize the data into categories or themes.
4. Inductive data analysis. This builds patterns,
categories, and themes from the bottom up, by
organizing the data into increasingly more abstract
units of information, leading to a comprehensive set of
themes.

8. Characteristics of Qualitative RQs
5. Participants’ meanings. Researchers try to keep focus
on learning and do understand the meaning behind the
facts they observe. They should never bring their
opinion to the field, and expressions written in the
literatures, but what the participants say about it or them
(the object like things, people, behaviors or actions).
6. Emergent design. Process research emergently. It
means that the initial plan for research cannot be tightly
prescribed, but they may change their focus after field
observation and while gathering the data.

9. Characteristics of Qualitative RQs
7. Theoretical lens. Researchers often use lens to view
their study that might be different from the theoretical
review. Sometimes, their study is organized and
identified around the social, political, cultural or historical
context of the problem under study.
8. Interpretive. they interpret what they see, hear and
understand. Their interpretation cannot be separated
from their background, prior understanding, and socio-
cultural context or even from other perspectives. At the
end, it is apparent how multiple views of the problem
can emerge.

10. Characteristics of Qualitative RQs
7. Holistic account. they try to develop a complex picture
of the problem or issue under study. This involves
reporting many different perspectives.
However, the characteristics could be simplified into some
points as stated by Seliger and Shohamy (1989), Tarigan
(1993). They are: holistic, heuristic/inductive, and no/low
control (natural).
.

11. Some General Issues/Topics for Qualitative Research
.1. EFL Learning styles and models
2. Teaching strategies
3. Classroom interactions
4. Gender in EFL teaching and learning process
5. Code switch in learning English
6. English in vocational, multicultural schools
7. Learning English through Electronic Devices
8. English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
9. English teachers’ competences
10. English curriculum and materials

12. Qualitative RQs
▪ Begin the RQs with the words what or how to convey an
open and emerging design.
The word why often implies that the researcher is trying to
explain why something occurs, and this suggests cause and
effect type of thinking which is associated with quantitative
research instead of the more open and emerging stance of
qualitative research.
▪ Focus on a single phenomenon or concept. As a study
develops over time, factors will emerge that may influence
this single phenomenon, but begin a study with a single
focus to explore in great detail.
Creswell. J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing
among five approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

13. Qualitative RQs
❑ Use exploratory verbs that convey the language of
emerging design. These verbs tell the reader that the
study will
• Discover (e.g., grounded theory)
• Seek to understand (e.g., ethnography)
• Explore a process (e.g., case study)
• Describe the experiences (e.g., phenomenology)
• Report the stories (e.g., narrative research)
Use these more exploratory verbs that are nondirectional
rather than directional words that suggest quantitative
research, such as “affect,” “influence,” “impact,”
“determine,” “cause,” and “relate.”
Creswell. J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing
among five approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

14. Qualitative RQs
❑ Expect the research questions to evolve and change
during the study in a manner consistent with the
assumptions of an emerging design.
Often in qualitative studies, the questions are under
continual review and reformulation.
This approach may be problematic for individuals
accustomed to quantitative designs, in which the research
questions remain fixed throughout the study.
Creswell. J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing
among five approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

15. Qualitative Research Question Types
Exploratory Questions
Questions that are designed to understand more about a
topic are exploratory questions.
The objective of asking an exploratory question is to
learn more about a topic without attributing bias or
preconceived notions to it.
Bui, Y. (2019). How to write a Master’s Thesis (3rd ed.). Sage.

16. Qualitative RQ Types
Sample Exploratory Questions
The current study focused on texts written by junior secondary
Chinese EFL learners at a school in Guangzhou. From the perspective of
functional text analysis (Byrnes 2013), it aimed to explore what kinds of text
types the junior secondary three students wrote and what textual features they
deployed to construe meanings in the texts. The research questions were:
1. Over a one-year longitudinal study, what kinds of text
types/genres have students accomplished in their English
writing?
2. What kinds of textual features (for example, generic stages)
are deployed in these ESL texts?
3. For the identified text types, how do the students configure
each text based on the three contextual variables of a
register: field, tenor and mode?
Xuan, W.W. (2017). Open Access. An exploratory study of ESL writing by junior
secondary students in China: text type, register and textual features. Springer

17. Mixed Methods RQs
This is a new form of question in research methods, and
Tashakkori and Creswell (2007, p. 208) call it a “hybrid” or
“integrated” question.
A strong mixed methods study should start with a mixed
methods research question, to shape the methods and the
overall design of a study.
Mixed methods studies rely on neither quantitative or
qualitative research alone, some combination of the two
provides the best information for the research questions
and hypotheses.
(Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007; Tashakkori & Creswell, 2007)

18. Mixed Methods RQs
Consider several different ways that all types of research
questions (i.e., quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) can be
written into a mixed methods study:
1. Write separate quantitative questions or hypotheses
and qualitative questions and follow them with a mixed
methods question. This highlights the importance of
both the qualitative and quantitative phases of the
study as well as their combined strength, and thus is
probably the ideal approach.
(Creswell, 2014)

19. Mixed Methods RQs
Consider several different ways that all types of research
questions (i.e., quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) can be
written into a mixed methods study:
2. Write only a mixed methods question that reflects the
procedures or the content (or write the mixed methods
question in both a procedural and a content approach),
and do not include separate quantitative and
qualitative questions. This approach would enhance
the viewpoint that the study intends to lead to some
integration or connection between the quantitative and
qualitative phases of the study (i.e., the sum of both
parts is greater than each part).
(Creswell, 2014)

20. Sample Mixed Methods RQs
1. How do the interviews with teachers, the principal, and
university consultants help to explain any quantitative
differences in achievement for middle-school and junior
high students?
2. How do the themes mentioned by the teachers help to
explain why middle-school children score lower than
the junior high students?
(Creswell, 2014)

21. Sample Mixed Methods RQs
A Mixed Methods Question Written in Terms of Mixing
Procedures
3.To what extent and in what ways do qualitative
interviews with students and faculty members serve to
contribute to a more comprehensive and nuanced
understanding of this predicting relationship between
CEEPT scores and student academic performance, via
integrative mixed methods analysis? (Lee & Greene,
2007)
(Creswell, 2014)

22. References
Bui, Y. (2019). How to write a Master’s Thesis (3rd ed.). Sage.
Creswell. J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Creswell, J.W. (2013). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among
Five Approaches (3rd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Creswell, J.W. (2014). Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating
Quantitative and Qualitative Research (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Education.
Doody, O., & Bailey, M. E. (2016). Setting a research question, aim, and objective.
Nurse Researcher, 23 (4).
https://journals.rcni.com/doi/pdfplus/10.7748/nr.23.4.19.s5
Farrugia, P., Petrisor, B. A., Farrokhyar, F., & Bhandari, M. (2010). Research
questions, hypotheses, and objectives. Canadian Journal of Surgery, 53
(4), 278. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2912019/
Lipowski, E. E. (2008). Developing great research questions. American Journal of
Health-System Pharmacy, 65 (17), 1667-1670.
https://academic.oup.com/ajhp/article-abstract/65/17/1667/5128061
Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2014). Designing qualitative research. Sage
publications. Google Books

23. THANK YOU FOR
YOUR
KIND ATTENTION